Either way, it's an Amazing Achievement, by the most achievious government that ever achieved a First Class Honours degree in Achievements from Achievement-town University...
And the counter point that you refuse to blink at is that the majority of voters not giving enough of a fuck to counter the urges of Britains xenophobic asshole¹ demographic is not the definition of a mandate.
[wanking sounds] mmmmmmandate!
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
I appreciate that you are not a supporter of Brexit.
I give zero fucks about Brexit. However, my objective understanding of every argument supporting it is fundamentally based on xenophobia. And the comorbid stupidity it nests in. And you personify all of that as passionately as a weasel in rut.
What group am I in?
You occupy a shelf labelled Exhibit Q: proof that RooK does not own this site.
Comorbid...I had to look that up. Proof that I must be stupid.
Indeed. Particularly given the word has been in widespread use in the current situation.
I can't be doing with such words. Give me plain english every time
It’s a medical term. Many illnesses have other comorbid conditions.
In medicine, comorbidity is the presence of one or more additional conditions often co-occurring (that is, concomitant or concurrent with) with a primary condition.
I've not heard mine use colonoscopy, perineum, sphincter or pancreas either but I know what they mean.
Plenty of words I don't know the meaning of, but I just look them up or seek clarification and expand my vocabulary. I suppose I could just have an intellectual inverse-snobbery whinge about it instead, of course.
I do love eloquence. As is so often the case, taking a word from a specific context and reapplying it to another where no specific equivalent term exists can be a very effective way of clearly explaining a point. The use here of comorbidity is a good example.
Not knowing the meaning of the word in no way implies stupidity. There are lots of terms I don't know.
What is a sign of poor thinking, is playing the victim @Telford: firstly the initial 'I must be stupid' to set up the pretence that the word is being used in a pretentious and sneering manner. Secondly, the notion that it's not 'plain English' is just doubling down on a silly argument that you couldn't support in the first place.
I love reading posts that make me think. I do not remotely like reading your posts...
I do love eloquence. As is so often the case, taking a word from a specific context and reapplying it to another where no specific equivalent term exists can be a very effective way of clearly explaining a point. The use here of comorbidity is a good example.
Not knowing the meaning of the word in no way implies stupidity. There are lots of terms I don't know.
What is a sign of poor thinking, is playing the victim @Telford: firstly the initial 'I must be stupid' to set up the pretence that the word is being used in a pretentious and sneering manner. Secondly, the notion that it's not 'plain English' is just doubling down on a silly argument that you couldn't support in the first place.
I love reading posts that make me think. I do not remotely like reading your posts...
I've not heard mine use colonoscopy, perineum, sphincter or pancreas either but I know what they mean.
Plenty of words I don't know the meaning of, but I just look them up or seek clarification and expand my vocabulary. I suppose I could just have an intellectual inverse-snobbery whinge about it instead, of course.
Perhaps you're too young to hear them - too early for things to go wrong with you. Colonoscopies here are not just commonly mentioned by doctors, but are the topic in general conversation - inability to play tennis or golf because you'll be preparing for a colonoscopy (not very pleasant times in your life, the procedure itself is really nothing) etc.
...I can't be doing with such words. Give me plain english every time
Now, that is a sentiment that could be labelled "stupid." That's particularly true since "plain English" is itself a collection of borrowings from languages not originally associated with Anglo-Saxon, including Latin and Norman French. Are you puzzled by someone announcing an intention to take a siesta? I suspect that that Spanish usage wasn't "plain English" until relatively recently in the life of the language. Have you learned to navigate around the Internet, or to use a mobile? Those words are even newer creations.
English is fluid; English grows. Some neologisms and lazy usages (no, it's not "less people," it's fewer people!) pain me personally, but English is perhaps the richest language in the world because of the long-running tendency of Anglophones to swipe good words from others.
So turn to your dictionary, whether online or on your shelf, when you encounter a word that is new to you. Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest - and rejoice that your native tongue offers so much variety.
And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to have a slice of yummy bara brith. I like the way the Welsh words trip off the tongue almost as much as I enjoy putting the foodstuff on my tongue.
...I can't be doing with such words. Give me plain english every time
Now, that is a sentiment that could be labelled "stupid." That's particularly true since "plain English" is itself a collection of borrowings from languages not originally associated with Anglo-Saxon, including Latin and Norman French. Are you puzzled by someone announcing an intention to take a siesta? I suspect that that Spanish usage wasn't "plain English" until relatively recently in the life of the language. Have you learned to navigate around the Internet, or to use a mobile? Those words are even newer creations.
English is fluid; English grows. Some neologisms and lazy usages (no, it's not "less people," it's fewer people!) pain me personally, but English is perhaps the richest language in the world because of the long-running tendency of Anglophones to swipe good words from others.
So turn to your dictionary, whether online or on your shelf, when you encounter a word that is new to you. Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest - and rejoice that your native tongue offers so much variety.
And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to have a slice of yummy bara brith. I like the way the Welsh words trip off the tongue almost as much as I enjoy putting the foodstuff on my tongue.
I'm from the Black Country. We have our own version of english.
I know people from the Black Country who speak perfectly intelligible English - and hiding behind local dialect as an excuse for not wanting to be bothered to look up a common word in standard English is hardly an attractive look.
Now pull up your socks, adjust your mask, and put your education to good use, just this once.
I know people from the Black Country who speak perfectly intelligible English - and hiding behind local dialect as an excuse for not wanting to be bothered to look up a common word in standard English is hardly an attractive look.
Now pull up your socks, adjust your mask, and put your education to good use, just this once.
I know people from the Black Country who speak perfectly intelligible English - and hiding behind local dialect as an excuse for not wanting to be bothered to look up a common word in standard English is hardly an attractive look.
Now pull up your socks, adjust your mask, and put your education to good use, just this once.
Stop being so aggressive. It's not a common word.
Given my profession, I am in no position to know how commonly it's used.
However, you're the one who made it about you with your snarky 'I must be stupid.'
Let me float you a hypothesis; if anything makes people wonder if you're stupid, it's these last few posts, making this whole thing personal and overly complicated. Conversely a simple "I am not familiar with 'comorbidity' and had to look it up... " would have painted yourself in a very good light. Then we could have spent a couple of pages asking if the substantive point was valid or not. And no one would have thought you stupid for taking that road.
AFZ
P.s. Mr Johnson is a good example of why vocabulary alone is a poor indicator of intelligence.
P.s. Mr Johnson is a good example of why vocabulary alone is a poor indicator of intelligence.
Indeed.
He sometimes puts on a good act. But any of us can bamboozle others with our knowledge of the subjects we studied in depth (or our specialist interests). The fact that he studied the ones which are supposed to show a ‘good education’ is irrelevant.
He’s woefully ignorant of the very things he needs to know - the real lives of people in the U.K. today.
I've always thought Boris Johnson a very poor user of English. He uses unnecessary and inaccurate superlatives, delivered in untidy stumbling sentences, which gives an impression of bluster, ignorance and indifference; which may of course be entirely deliberate. An apparently intelligent, well-educated, upper class person who struggles to speak coherently, whilst smiling bashfully is, to some people, disarmingly irresistible. If you think the funny posh person trying to run your country is basically bright but aww, look how sweet it is when it tries in its disarming bumbling way to interact with others, you're caught off guard.
He also uses throw-away foreign language phrases which add nothing to the meaning of what he says, and is genuinely unable to judge when it is appropriate to jest or make flippant remarks. The only time, so far as I can judge, that he has been quite clear and appropriately sensible to the subject he's addressing, is when he's obviously reading and sticking to a prepared script, which one supposes might well have been written or at least outlined by someone else.
I wouldn't say he's not intelligent as such. Just that if he is, for some strategic reason it masquerades as this act he has where he clearly hopes to disarm his audience by his 'charm', at the same time assuming they will see underneath to his real brightness and smartness, thus short-cutting any need on his part to actually go to the trouble of being bright or smart.
Interestingly, I think the Boris Johnson we sometimes see at PMQs is more the real thing. Red-faced, baffled, impatient, evasive, angry at being asked er.... questions and expected to answer them. In other words, someone who probably has the capacity to put in a good day's work, but who has never really had to be bothered to do so, and is really rather resenting being held to that expectation now that 66 million people are relying on him for it.
I am told that someone said of the Emperor Claudius that "only an idiot pretends to be an idiot" - and got away with it. I have been unable to find the quote in an ancient source. (I thought it would be appropriate to put it in Latin.)
I know people from the Black Country who speak perfectly intelligible English - and hiding behind local dialect as an excuse for not wanting to be bothered to look up a common word in standard English is hardly an attractive look.
Now pull up your socks, adjust your mask, and put your education to good use, just this once.
Stop being so aggressive. It's not a common word.
Given my profession, I am in no position to know how commonly it's used.
However, you're the one who made it about you with your snarky 'I must be stupid.'
Let me float you a hypothesis; if anything makes people wonder if you're stupid, it's these last few posts, making this whole thing personal and overly complicated. Conversely a simple "I am not familiar with 'comorbidity' and had to look it up... " would have painted yourself in a very good light. Then we could have spent a couple of pages asking if the substantive point was valid or not. And no one would have thought you stupid for taking that road.
AFZ
P.s. Mr Johnson is a good example of why vocabulary alone is a poor indicator of intelligence.
Why am I getting all these insults. I have not insulted anyone?
As someone who has lived in the Black Country for some years may I reassure Shipmates that the proportion of well-educated articulate people with extensive vocabularies (and the ability to use a dictionary if necessary) seems to me to be much as the same as in other parts of the country?
I can't be doing with such words. Give me plain english every time
Now, now. Black Country, as a way of speaking English, is many things that is great and wonderful - but I think the good folks who live there would be a little insulted to think of it as merely 'plain'! ;-)
<snip>
Interestingly, I think the Boris Johnson we sometimes see at PMQs is more the real thing. Red-faced, baffled, impatient, evasive, angry at being asked er.... questions and expected to answer them. In other words, someone who probably has the capacity to put in a good day's work, but who has never really had to be bothered to do so, and is really rather resenting being held to that expectation now that 66 million people are relying on him for it.
I can't be doing with such words. Give me plain english every time
Now, now. Black Country, as a way of speaking English, is many things that is great and wonderful - but I think the good folks who live there would be a little insulted to think of it as merely 'plain'! ;-)
As someone who has lived in the Black Country for some years may I reassure Shipmates that the proportion of well-educated articulate people with extensive vocabularies (and the ability to use a dictionary if necessary) seems to me to be much as the same as in other parts of the country?
Yes - Covid19 has done that. Forced him to be serious. I think he is struggling.
Indeed he is, and his (and his government's) ghastly mishandling of just about everything connected with this bloody plague is rapidly heading us towards a second lockdown, thousands upon thousands more deaths, and (as the icing on the cake) a no-deal Brexshit especially designed to foul up the country even further...
I know people from the Black Country who speak perfectly intelligible English - and hiding behind local dialect as an excuse for not wanting to be bothered to look up a common word in standard English is hardly an attractive look.
Now pull up your socks, adjust your mask, and put your education to good use, just this once.
Stop being so aggressive. It's not a common word.
Coming from you, accusations of being "aggressive" are fairly comical. And common or not, nothing is stopping you from looking it up.
As someone who has lived in the Black Country for some years may I reassure Shipmates that the proportion of well-educated articulate people with extensive vocabularies (and the ability to use a dictionary if necessary) seems to me to be much as the same as in other parts of the country?
That was my strong impression, from my visits to the Black Country. Ah, but what's the "So Aggressive" level of the people in your neighborhood?
<snip>
Interestingly, I think the Boris Johnson we sometimes see at PMQs is more the real thing. Red-faced, baffled, impatient, evasive, angry at being asked er.... questions and expected to answer them. In other words, someone who probably has the capacity to put in a good day's work, but who has never really had to be bothered to do so, and is really rather resenting being held to that expectation now that 66 million people are relying on him for it.
Very true. My heart bleeds for him...
My heart bleeds for the 66 million. (I know that you were being ironic.)
I know people from the Black Country who speak perfectly intelligible English - and hiding behind local dialect as an excuse for not wanting to be bothered to look up a common word in standard English is hardly an attractive look.
Now pull up your socks, adjust your mask, and put your education to good use, just this once.
Stop being so aggressive. It's not a common word.
Coming from you, accusations of being "aggressive" are fairly comical. And common or not, nothing is stopping you from looking it up.
I tend to use words that people will not need to look up.
As someone who has lived in the Black Country for some years may I reassure Shipmates that the proportion of well-educated articulate people with extensive vocabularies (and the ability to use a dictionary if necessary) seems to me to be much as the same as in other parts of the country?
That was my strong impression, from my visits to the Black Country. Ah, but what's the "So Aggressive" level of the people in your neighborhood?
Living there for most of your life is different to visiting. As for agression, I was not referring to anyone in my neighbourhood. I waited in vain for Margaret to find out where she lived in The Black Country.
My last comment on the fact that I was not aware of the meaning of a word which was not mentioned when I did my GCE O level in English Language.
...I tend to use words that people will not need to look up.
I tend to use the right word for a given situation. (It takes, at most, 30 seconds to look up a meaning - and you get to learn something new!)
Living there for most of your life is different to visiting. As for agression <sic>, I was not referring to anyone in my neighbourhood. I waited in vain for Margaret to find out where she lived in The Black Country. ...
I know the answer to that, having stayed in her guest room more than once, but it's her choice to decide whether to share that or not.
I was hoping that you would mention whether or not your accusation of my being "so aggressive" had anything to do with my possession of a pair of X chromosomes. You seem to have no problem with being highly aggressive yourself. Perhaps, in your mind, it's exclusively permitted as a Guy Thing?
I know people from the Black Country who speak perfectly intelligible English - and hiding behind local dialect as an excuse for not wanting to be bothered to look up a common word in standard English is hardly an attractive look.
Now pull up your socks, adjust your mask, and put your education to good use, just this once.
Stop being so aggressive. It's not a common word.
Coming from you, accusations of being "aggressive" are fairly comical. And common or not, nothing is stopping you from looking it up.
I tend to use words that people will not need to look up.
As someone who has lived in the Black Country for some years may I reassure Shipmates that the proportion of well-educated articulate people with extensive vocabularies (and the ability to use a dictionary if necessary) seems to me to be much as the same as in other parts of the country?
That was my strong impression, from my visits to the Black Country. Ah, but what's the "So Aggressive" level of the people in your neighborhood?
Living there for most of your life is different to visiting. As for agression, I was not referring to anyone in my neighbourhood. I waited in vain for Margaret to find out where she lived in The Black Country.
My last comment on the fact that I was not aware of the meaning of a word which was not mentioned when I did my GCE O level in English Language.
Yes ok but the ship is a discussion space and we do need to use technical language. Salvation is not understood by some. The right words for the context may not a well known but a lesser known one.
You can't demand that others confine their vocabularies to yours. For one thing, they have no way of knowing the extent of your vocabulary. Since you seem to think GCE O Level defines it (Ah ha, age hint there), I wonder if you have extended it to include words pertinent to your other subjects, or your employment, or your hobby, or if you have actually read any other material, fiction or non-fiction since you were 16. It seems unlikely that you haven't. The words necessary to function on line would not have been around then, for example.
BTW, don't try and read Stephen Donaldson. I had to go down to the public library with a list to look up in the Webster - not the Oxford - dictionary. That was before online sources, of course.
Looking up words is handy, in case it turns out that the word you do not know is one that *everyone* else knows.
Take the subject of this thread. I was astonished to hear that Boris was M.P. for Uxbridge, as I was under the impression that Uxbridge was a fictional place, invented by I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue
Fortunately I looked it up on Google Maps and confirmed that it actually exists before broadcasting my ignorance all over the Ship.
Comments
It's not a word I have heard my doctor use.
Plenty of words I don't know the meaning of, but I just look them up or seek clarification and expand my vocabulary. I suppose I could just have an intellectual inverse-snobbery whinge about it instead, of course.
Not knowing the meaning of the word in no way implies stupidity. There are lots of terms I don't know.
What is a sign of poor thinking, is playing the victim @Telford: firstly the initial 'I must be stupid' to set up the pretence that the word is being used in a pretentious and sneering manner. Secondly, the notion that it's not 'plain English' is just doubling down on a silly argument that you couldn't support in the first place.
I love reading posts that make me think. I do not remotely like reading your posts...
AFZ
No problem I forgive you anyway.
Of course you can
Perhaps you're too young to hear them - too early for things to go wrong with you. Colonoscopies here are not just commonly mentioned by doctors, but are the topic in general conversation - inability to play tennis or golf because you'll be preparing for a colonoscopy (not very pleasant times in your life, the procedure itself is really nothing) etc.
There is a performative element to the stupidity on display that is quite annoying.
Now, that is a sentiment that could be labelled "stupid." That's particularly true since "plain English" is itself a collection of borrowings from languages not originally associated with Anglo-Saxon, including Latin and Norman French. Are you puzzled by someone announcing an intention to take a siesta? I suspect that that Spanish usage wasn't "plain English" until relatively recently in the life of the language. Have you learned to navigate around the Internet, or to use a mobile? Those words are even newer creations.
English is fluid; English grows. Some neologisms and lazy usages (no, it's not "less people," it's fewer people!) pain me personally, but English is perhaps the richest language in the world because of the long-running tendency of Anglophones to swipe good words from others.
So turn to your dictionary, whether online or on your shelf, when you encounter a word that is new to you. Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest - and rejoice that your native tongue offers so much variety.
And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to have a slice of yummy bara brith. I like the way the Welsh words trip off the tongue almost as much as I enjoy putting the foodstuff on my tongue.
We have been supportive of the lockdown measures, but we both think that the latest pronouncements are getting rather close to political stunts.
We could use a few more political stunts aimed at bringing down the numbers in the red (in both popular senses of the word) state wherein I dwell.
I'm from the Black Country. We have our own version of english.
Now pull up your socks, adjust your mask, and put your education to good use, just this once.
Stop being so aggressive. It's not a common word.
Given my profession, I am in no position to know how commonly it's used.
However, you're the one who made it about you with your snarky 'I must be stupid.'
Let me float you a hypothesis; if anything makes people wonder if you're stupid, it's these last few posts, making this whole thing personal and overly complicated. Conversely a simple "I am not familiar with 'comorbidity' and had to look it up... " would have painted yourself in a very good light. Then we could have spent a couple of pages asking if the substantive point was valid or not. And no one would have thought you stupid for taking that road.
AFZ
P.s. Mr Johnson is a good example of why vocabulary alone is a poor indicator of intelligence.
Indeed.
He sometimes puts on a good act. But any of us can bamboozle others with our knowledge of the subjects we studied in depth (or our specialist interests). The fact that he studied the ones which are supposed to show a ‘good education’ is irrelevant.
He’s woefully ignorant of the very things he needs to know - the real lives of people in the U.K. today.
It's not always easy to tell not wanting to know from not giving a shit.
I'd say he does nothing to counter the anti-intellectualism with which our culture (and not just in the West Midlands north of Birminham) is cursed.
He also uses throw-away foreign language phrases which add nothing to the meaning of what he says, and is genuinely unable to judge when it is appropriate to jest or make flippant remarks. The only time, so far as I can judge, that he has been quite clear and appropriately sensible to the subject he's addressing, is when he's obviously reading and sticking to a prepared script, which one supposes might well have been written or at least outlined by someone else.
I wouldn't say he's not intelligent as such. Just that if he is, for some strategic reason it masquerades as this act he has where he clearly hopes to disarm his audience by his 'charm', at the same time assuming they will see underneath to his real brightness and smartness, thus short-cutting any need on his part to actually go to the trouble of being bright or smart.
Interestingly, I think the Boris Johnson we sometimes see at PMQs is more the real thing. Red-faced, baffled, impatient, evasive, angry at being asked er.... questions and expected to answer them. In other words, someone who probably has the capacity to put in a good day's work, but who has never really had to be bothered to do so, and is really rather resenting being held to that expectation now that 66 million people are relying on him for it.
Why am I getting all these insults. I have not insulted anyone?
The Black Country is to the west of Birmingham.
Now, now. Black Country, as a way of speaking English, is many things that is great and wonderful - but I think the good folks who live there would be a little insulted to think of it as merely 'plain'! ;-)
Very true. My heart bleeds for him...
Yes. You are right. I was out of order.
and what proportion would that be ?
Indeed he is, and his (and his government's) ghastly mishandling of just about everything connected with this bloody plague is rapidly heading us towards a second lockdown, thousands upon thousands more deaths, and (as the icing on the cake) a no-deal Brexshit especially designed to foul up the country even further...
That was my strong impression, from my visits to the Black Country. Ah, but what's the "So Aggressive" level of the people in your neighborhood?
My heart bleeds for the 66 million. (I know that you were being ironic.)
My last comment on the fact that I was not aware of the meaning of a word which was not mentioned when I did my GCE O level in English Language.
I know the answer to that, having stayed in her guest room more than once, but it's her choice to decide whether to share that or not.
I was hoping that you would mention whether or not your accusation of my being "so aggressive" had anything to do with my possession of a pair of X chromosomes. You seem to have no problem with being highly aggressive yourself. Perhaps, in your mind, it's exclusively permitted as a Guy Thing?
Yes ok but the ship is a discussion space and we do need to use technical language. Salvation is not understood by some. The right words for the context may not a well known but a lesser known one.
BTW, don't try and read Stephen Donaldson. I had to go down to the public library with a list to look up in the Webster - not the Oxford - dictionary. That was before online sources, of course.
Take the subject of this thread. I was astonished to hear that Boris was M.P. for Uxbridge, as I was under the impression that Uxbridge was a fictional place, invented by I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue
Fortunately I looked it up on Google Maps and confirmed that it actually exists before broadcasting my ignorance all over the Ship.
(With all due respects to its good people, should it be real).